The Meaning of Holidays
by Maniacal Dragon
Summary: Why do we have holidays? The fact of the matter is.. humanity could not exist without them.


This year for Halloween, Chester Wharton decided he wanted to go as a witch. His sister Amy sneered at him, saying that only girls were witches, and even his parents were surprised. But Chester was adamant. Why, he said, should only girls get to be witches? Girls could go as anything that a boy could go as. And so, Chester went as a witch.  
  
He had a long black robe and a pointed hat with a large brim that hid his eyes. His parents gave him an old broom, cut in half so he could carry it easier. But in the end, Chester decided to go without his hat. It was too hard to see with it on.  
  
A car pulled up into the long dirt driveway at about six o' clock. In the backseat, a group of three little first-graders fidgeted around, waving to Chester as his mother handed him his colorful orange-and-black trick-or-treat bag. Being careful not to trip on his robe, Chester ran out to the car, clutching the bag and his broom.  
  
"Halloween is so stupid," said Amy, leaning sullenly against the table as the car drove away with her little brother, the glare of the headlights fading into the distance. Mrs. Wharton gave her a dark look, and Mr. Wharton ignored her, settling deeper into his chair with the book Ender's Game crammed full into his face.  
  
"Now, Amy," Mrs. Wharton said, as she dried the last of the cups and put them away. "Halloween is just as special as all of the other holidays. When people give meaning to a day, it becomes special. Think how wonderful it would be if you could find that meaning. Our lives would not be as rich if it weren't for the holidays." Mrs. Wharton lifted a brown eyebrow. "Try, dear?"  
  
Amy did not answer, but turned and flounced up the stairs to shut herself in her room.  
  
"Chester's a witch," laughed the pumpkin sitting next to the window. Once a small girl, she was now a bulbous orange globe with green felt leaves and vine nearly hiding her face and head.  
  
"You dummy," said a boy dressed in a black fedora and cape. "He's not a witch. He's pretending to sweep the car, but then he'll fly off into the moon when we're not watching."  
  
"That's a witch," insisted the pumpkin.  
  
"Modern witches have vacuum cleaners," piped in the girl with cat ears tied to her head and whiskers painted on her face.  
  
"Here's our stop," said the pumpkin's mother from the driver's seat, and she pulled the car over onto the side of the road.  
  
The voices clamored up again as the children tried to beat each other out of the car. Chester's trick-or-treat bag got tangled with the cat's, and they took a moment to try and separate them, laughing. The pumpkin's mother came over to help them. She was dressed as a witch, too, complete with pointy hat, and sans a broom.  
  
Chester knew, as he walked down the dark street with his friends, that there was never any better place to trick-or-treat than this town. In all the yards there were huge oak trees, fiery with changing leaves that snapped loose every once in a while and zipped by in the wind. Most people decorated, so there were a good number of jack-o'-lanterns lining paths and steps.  
  
But Chester's favorite place was the old house on the turn of the road. No one lived there, but on Halloween the neighbors put out baskets of candy under the eaves for the children to pick up. There were trees all around this old house, and no lights around except the barrels covered with screens in which burned pitch and logs. The trees here were always bare of their leaves by Halloween, and the wind leaped and twisted around the bare branches with a hollow whistling sound.  
  
The children fell silent as they approached the old house. Every year, they picked someone out to go and get a handful of candy from the porch to share around. For the past two years, it had been Chester, and of course they picked him again. He wasn't afraid. not really.  
  
The first year he'd gone as a puppy dog. The second, a pumpkin. This year, he was a witch, and the moon was waxing to full. He felt a wild urge to leap onto the old half-broom and fly into the sky. If he'd thought it was possible, he would've done it, and he had to remind himself several times that he couldn't as he walked towards the old house. The wind howled, whipping his dark hair around his earnest face, and he kept walking. A low moaning slipped through the trees and shook the shutters of the old house.  
  
Chester froze. There was someone. something there.  
  
"Go on!" The pumpkin whispered behind him. Chester started walking again. He stepped up onto the porch, and reached a small hand out for the basket of candy. The wind howled even more fiercely, and as his hands closed on the bait, Chester turned and stood suddenly, clutching his handful tightly.  
  
A ghostly-pale face with only black void for eyes greeted him and then was gone. Chester did not have the presence of mind even to scream, and the wind began to shriek and howl, shaking the shutters and whipping orange and brown leaves through the air around Chester. Pale broken tendrils of some ghostly. thing brushed past his face. He stumbled off the porch and ran, wild-eyed, back to the group. The boy in the cape caught him.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Chester shook his head. "I don't know." Wordlessly he dropped several pieces of candy into each of the other children's bags.  
  
They finished trick-or-treating that night in silence.  
  
The next morning, when Chester looked out his window, things looked lively and normal. The trees waved browning leaves cheerfully in the breeze, and inside the wooden and electric fencing the sheep and llamas grazed peacefully. Crawling out of bed, Chester padded downstairs in his pajamas.  
  
"Good morning, Chester," Mrs. Wharton said. Mr. Wharton was seated at the table, finishing up the last chapters of Ender's Game as he hungrily downed eggs and coffee. Chester glanced at his father, and then looked back to his mother. "Good morning."  
  
Mrs. Wharton smiled and handed her son a plate of eggs with pancakes. "Sit down and eat, sweetie, and then go wake your sister up." It was Saturday, but Chester knew his mother was not very happy with Amy these days, and not just because of the time she woke up.  
  
Chester sat across from Mr. Wharton and downed his meal in silence. The phone rang, and he pushed his plate away and went upstairs to wake his sister and get dressed.  
  
Chester went with his mother to do the chores to avoid his sister's scowling presence. He thought he hated his sister as much as his mother did, but he decided he felt more sad for her than anything. She couldn't be happy.  
  
Chester patted one of the ugly, bleating sheep as he gave an armload of hay to his mother to put in the racks. He didn't really like the sheep. they were noisy and smelly and stupid. But when one of the llamas came up to investigate what the two humans were doing, Chester stroked its soft shoulder and said, "I saw something really scary last night. you know next year, I'm going to have to take you trick-or-treating with me. You can go as one of those sheep."  
  
His mother saw him talking to the animal and smiled, though he talked low enough so that she couldn't hear what he said. Chester was always such a help to her with the livestock. That was her job, since she had no other; taking care of the animals and making sweaters and yarn from their wool. Mrs. Wharton was kind and plump, with soft short brown hair, and extremely agile fingers that were wonderful for spinning and knitting. Amy often made fun of her mother for her old-fashioned ways, but Mrs. Wharton quietly bore up under the scathing remarks. She felt her way was better, and if her daughter wanted to be difficult and modern, then so be it. Thinking about it as she filled the water buckets with the hose, Mrs. Wharton felt a pang of momentary sadness that she'd be stuck with her daughter with a good six more years. Hopefully Amy's present attitude would fade away.  
  
She looked up to see Chester hugging the llama around the neck, hiding his face in the soft wool. The animal didn't mind, simply gazing at him with long-lashed eyes and whuffling at his hair every now and then.  
  
"Come on, sweetheart," Mrs. Wharton said kindly. "Let's go back inside and see what else we can find to do away from your sister." Chester lifted his bright face from the llama's wool and smiled.  
  
For Christmas, Amy wanted a new stereo set. With a CD exchanger, and of course some new CDs. Mrs. Wharton sat at the table, looking over the finance sheets and bills for that month. She didn't think such an expensive present would be feasible. With a sigh, she pushed them across the table as Chester padded into the kitchen.  
  
"Hi Mom," he said, climbing into a nearby chair. Mrs. Wharton turned her gaze from the snow falling outside to smile at her son. "Hello, dear. Say. what would you like for Christmas?"  
  
Chester thought about that. "I only put one thing on my list to Santa Claus," he said. "I thought it would be a really neat thing to have."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Well." Chester looked down at his hands on his lap. "I asked for a reindeer. You know, they are probably really nice animals, he could live with the llamas, and the sheep."  
  
Mrs. Wharton didn't answer but turned her gaze to the snow again. Her children wanted things that were probably way out of her price range. She sighed sadly.  
  
"It's okay though," Chester said quietly, hearing the sigh. "I don't need a reindeer. I'll just ask Santa." In the Wharton household, the children separated Santa Claus from their parents; Santa might bring them presents, but their parents always did. Chester believed in Santa Claus, firmly, but not in the same way that most children did. Amy had long since been scoffing at the idea of Santa Claus. That made Chester mad.  
  
Mrs. Wharton turned to smile at him. "Yes, sweetheart, you do that, okay? I'll ask him for you, too." What she really meant was that she'd try to find a reindeer, but she held very little hope for the endeavor.  
  
Chester nodded, and stared at his lap for a long moment. "Mom," he said after a while. "Santa Claus runs Christmas, doesn't he?"  
  
"Yes, dear." Mrs. Wharton gazed out at the falling snow again.  
  
"And then the other holidays, who runs them?"  
  
"Well, there's the Easter Bunny, and then St. Patrick's Day and April Fool's Day are run more by a group of little folk than by any one person."  
  
"What about Halloween?" Chester remembered the spooky old house he trick-or-treated at every year and shivered delightedly recalling it.  
  
"I don't know, dear. I would expect there is someone. But for Halloween, it would naturally be something in the shadows, frightening, that we can't quite see."  
  
It was always so hard to get to sleep on Christmas Eve. Chester lay curled in a ball on his bed in his down quilt, staring with wide eyes out at the snow-covered landscape. The sheep were huddled under the trees, and the llamas were in scattered groups around the fence. It was cold in his room, or Chester would've gotten up to watch out the window. It was late, he realized as he looked at the clock, and tired as he was, Chester couldn't fall asleep.  
  
I'll go downstairs, he decided. Shivering as he crawled out of bed, he tiptoed down the hall and stairs to the living room where the fireplace was cold, awaiting Santa Claus. Hot chocolate with plenty of milk and whipped cream was in a thermal mug on the table by the fireplace. The Christmas tree was strung with ornaments and colored electric lights, and a few brightly wrapped presents were nestled underneath.  
  
In Mr. Wharton's big comfortable chair facing the fire, someone was sitting. Chester moved closer to see. it was a chubby old man, with a long white beard and dressed in a red suit with furry white trim, fastened around the middle with a black belt.  
  
"Santa Claus?" Chester whispered in awe.  
  
For a moment he thought it was his father dressing up, but when Santa turned to him, a smile crinkling up warm brown eyes, he knew it was not. His father had flighty, distracted grey eyes. Chester could not help smiling back as Santa gestured for him to come over. The boy did, climbing onto Santa's knee without being bidden.  
  
"How are you tonight, Chester?" Santa's voice was friendly and soft, almost whispering to make sure that no one else was woken up.  
  
"I'm very good, sir," Chester said, his eyes shining as they gazed at Santa Claus. "But don't you have to be going to give presents to the other children?"  
  
"All in good time." Santa Claus smiled. "I've brought you and your sister something both." A gloved hand gestured to the tree. There, wrapped with a gold and red ribbon and bow, was a smiling teddy bear, with soft fur white as the sheeps'. Held in the bear's arms was a letter. "For Amy," said Santa Claus.  
  
"But. she wanted a stereo," said Chester, looking at the bear in confusion.  
  
"It's all right."  
  
Chester looked back at Santa Claus. "What did you bring for me?"  
  
Old Santa smiled again. "You will see in the morning." Santa smiled seeing the boy look again at the teddy bear. "Don't worry, young Chester. Everything will be all right with Amy."  
  
Chester, for some reason, believed him. Nothing was going terribly wrong with his sister, except of course her mood, but Santa's words seemed to plant a seed of hope. And it was no small hope, either. Amy was part of the family; she needed to be happy, too.  
  
"Mr. Santa Claus, sir," Chester started, thinking of something.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I was wondering." Chester stared at his lap, twisting his small hands together. "You run Christmas, and the Easter Bunny runs Easter, and the little folk run St. Patrick's Day. but, sir, who runs Halloween?"  
  
A smile crept into being on Santa's face. "Halloween is a special holiday. And yes, someone does run Halloween, but he is not someone that you would know as well as Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny!" A jolly, but very quiet, laugh came from Santa's throat.  
  
"My mother said it would have to be somebody in the shadows, so we wouldn't know who," Chester agreed.  
  
"Yes," Santa said, solemn now. "A very enterprising fellow, hidden away, lurking in the shadows and on the edge of dreams, to frighten you on Halloween and remind you that what you can see and touch is not all that there is in the world."  
  
"Is he very pale?" Chester remembered the ghostly face he'd seen. The way the wind had picked up, howling, those strange pale slivers that touched his face.  
  
"Yes. In many parts of that world, there is very little color. Halloween was and is many things; not only a world of mystery and magick, but also a world of the dead, and a world of coming winter, apples and fields and pumpkins. However, the business of Halloween is in frightening, and reminding of that which mortals tend to forget. All holidays have a purpose of reminding."  
  
It seemed strange to Chester, as he sat up on Santa's lap, to be talking about Halloween on Christmas. Somehow it didn't seem right. "What about you, Santa? What are you?"  
  
"An ideal, my boy, unfortunately. I am kind, and giving. these are traits which humanity wants but cannot seem to achieve. I represent the spirit of giving and of good-heartedness, and I try my best to prepare for it every year and hold up that ideal. If it were to fall, this world would go with it."  
  
Chester leaned against Santa and thought about that. It was a frightening prospect. "Does Halloween keep us alive, too?" he wanted to know.  
  
"Yes. Halloween reminds mortals of their place, reminds them that they and their world are not the only things in existence, and are not even really important. Halloween gives you a brief glimpse of what else is out there. there are some mortals that travel past that glimpse, just as there are some mortals who hold the spirit of my ideal, of giving and kindness, all year long. but these few are not in the majority, and unless they become so, holidays are necessary to the well-being of the mortal world."  
  
Chester hid his face in Santa's beard. He wasn't sure if he really understood. but another twinge of anger surfaced in his mind as he remembered his sister's disdain for the holidays. Without them, he thought fiercely, we would all be much worse. The holidays each represented an idea, he thought, that was essential to human wellbeing. Kindness and unselfishness; awareness of the forces beyond and stronger than mortals; humor; appreciation for the things we have; renewal and life; love; cherishing instead of taking for granted.  
  
Chester thought he might like to learn more about those things beyond what he could see and touch; those things that Halloween reminded mortals of. Especially after meeting the pale face at the old house, Chester held a deep respect and appreciation for Halloween. Suddenly he was determined to go back there next year, and meet that spectre again. It must be the ruler of Halloween; it was too frightening to be any other.  
  
"Santa," he said quietly. "What is his name, the one who runs Halloween?"  
  
"Jack," said Santa Claus.  
  
Chester awoke the next morning to the sun shining through the window. He was curled up in the big chair by the fire, and he slowly stretched. Had it been a dream? He hoped not. the sound of footsteps on the carpeted stairs roused Chester fully and he slid off of the chair onto the rug. It was his sister, her sharp eyes probably eager to see if her stereo was under the tree. But there was only the teddy.  
  
Soon the whole family was circled around the tree, opening the little gifts they'd gotten each other, exclaiming over them and thanking each other. Amy picked up the bear, setting it on her lap as she opened the letter. Everyone watched her face, though no one except Chester knew whom the bear was from.  
  
"There's a drama club coming to our school," Amy said in amazement. "And they want me to be in it." Her mother and father, surprised, wanted to read the letter. There had not been any extracurricular groups at the tiny school of their town for a very long time. As they read the letter, Amy held the bear in her lap, and when she saw Chester looking at her, she smiled.  
  
Chester turned and looked out through the window to the fences. He saw the sheep, and the llamas, and among the group was a sable brown and grey animal, with long branching antlers.  
  
"Mom! Dad!" Chester cried, scrambling to his feet and running to the door. Struggling to tug on his boots, he looked up at them with delight in every line of his face. They followed after him as he ran outside, not bothering to zip up his coat. The sheep bleated and moved away as he ran into the paddock, but he ignored them. He slowed as he headed for the reindeer.  
  
It gazed at him calmly, and it was wearing a simple red and green harness to which was attached sleigh bells. The reindeer came up to him, and the bells jingled.  
  
Mrs. Wharton gazed open-mouthed, giving a glance to her husband, who looked just as amazed. Neither of them had gotten a reindeer. But Chester knew. He hugged the deer around the neck, and whispered, "Thank you, Santa."  
  
The reindeer nuzzled him. Chester saw a nametag sewn to the front of the harness, and it read, "Blitzen".  
  
  
  
"See, Blitzen, I promised him I'd take him trick-or-treating. and you're a Christmas reindeer, but if you want, maybe next year..." The reindeer only looked at him. The llama that Chester had chosen to go trick-or-treating with him was wearing a black cloth mask and an orange blanket, and had trick-or-treat bags attached to his pack. After much cajoling, Mrs. Wharton had agreed to let Chester take a llama trick-or-treating with him. Since the llama needed a van, she'd decided to go with the trick-or- treaters this year.  
  
And sure enough, they were all there at the ends of their driveways, waiting to be picked up. There was one more this year; a new little boy who had just moved into the neighborhood. He was dressed as a vampire. This year, Chester had dressed up in all black, and painted his face white. Blitzen had to stay home, but Chester promised to tell him all about it when he returned.  
  
The trick-or-treaters had a marvelous time, especially with the gentle llama to carry their trick-or-treat bags. They fairly danced along the road, raising small hands to the huge old trees in the yards, waving to the candles in the windows, and pointing at the jack-o'-lanterns. Mrs. Wharton led the llama, and she was dressed up as a llama, as well, with long furry ears and a sweater knitted of llama wool.  
  
When they reached the old house, Chester slowed and looked up at it. It looked just like he remembered it, but it seemed the trees had grown even more huge and twisted.  
  
"Chester!" whispered the pumpkin. "Go on!"  
  
Nothing could have kept him back. His white-painted face nearly glowing in the darkness, Chester walked past the fire barrels towards the old house. The wind howled between the branches of the trees, through the windows, banging the shutters dangerously. The whole house seemed to groan, like it wanted to lurch towards him. As he stepped onto the porch, Chester looked all around him, shivering against the wind that whipped his hair and clothes and screamed in his ear.  
  
"I see you," he whispered.  
  
Standing hidden among the trees was that thin ghostly figure, with bottomless black eye sockets and a terrible grin. Long pale fingers seemed to reach for Chester, and he gasped. The figure disappeared, leaving only a faint ripple of laughter, that pitched higher and higher until it was gone altogether.  
  
Shaking with fear, Chester stumbled off the porch and back to his group of friends.  
  
"Where's the candy?" demanded the pumpkin.  
  
Chester didn't go back to that house, but he thought about it a lot. He found a grouse by the fence outside near Thanksgiving, and he sat down to watch it until it flew away into the woods. Blitzen and a pair of the llamas came over to see what he was up to, and he stroked the reindeer's nose and smiled at the llamas.  
  
"One of these days, we'll get to talk to him and see what the things beyond are all about, won't we Blitzen?" The reindeer almost seemed to smile back.  
  
One morning when he woke up, Blitzen was gone. But that night, Chester stood and went to his window. He wasn't sure why, but he was glad he did, because across the moon he saw a team of eight reindeer pulling a sleigh, their hooves thundering against empty air. From far away, one of the reindeer turned to look at him, and Chester smiled. 


End file.
